Don’t forget about mom on Sunday. It is Mother’s Day and you certainly want to make your mom feel like a million bucks. If you really want to please her, check out these do-it-yourself cards that you can create for her or that you can have the grand kids create (even better!) and show her your love.

This could be exciting news for anyone who lives with a snorer. A new device could actually keep people from snoring. It’s a magnetic collar that the snoring person wears around his neck and it sits above the horseshoe-shaped bone that we have in our throat. When worn during sleep, the power of the two magnets keeps the person’s airways open and keeps them from snoring.

The device would work on people who have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) which causes the tissue in the throat to relax and collapse while sleeping. Some people use the CPAP devices for these issues, but there are many who aren’t comfortable with the devices or feel that they can’t use them.

This treatment is called the Magnap system. One of the magnets is actually implanted in the hyoid bone and the patient wears the other magnet with the external collar. It’s custom-made for each patient and is worn in front of the neck. The magnet on the collar pulls the internal magnet on the hyoid bone forward by one centimeter, opening the upper airway and improving airflow.

Some US patients have already had the device implanted and the trail they are in should last until the end of the year.

Of course, most women don’t plan when they are going to give birth. And they don’t have a say in when the nurses’ or doctors’ shifts start and end. But for health professionals and hospitals, the study results, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and coming from the University of Texas at Austin can be a wake-up call.

Researchers assessed 24,506 unscheduled delivers in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2013. The obstetricians worked on the same labor and delivery ward for all of these deliveries and they worked 12 hours shifts during this five year period.

Researchers found that the most dangerous time to give birth is during the 9th hour of the 12 hour shift. This is when the risk of maternal blood loss and lower blood oxygen levels in the womb are highest.

As lead author Dr. James Scott explained,

“There are all sorts of studies about the timing of deliveries, but what nobody had looked at before is whether there is there some kind of proxy for how fatigued the doctors are.”

Interestingly, the findings did not see a difference between day and night deliveries, weekday versus weekend deliveries, vaginal versus Caesarean or junior versus senior doctor status.

If you’re a parent (or really just a human yourself) then you know that some people sleep better than others. Parents can see that one child loves to sleep and was always a good sleeper as a baby, while another has to be coaxed to sleep each night. Now, scientists think they can explain why.

According to investigators at the Washington State University, some people are born with a gene that helps them to sleep better at night. Apparently, mice with the FABP7 gene intact slept better than did those mice for whom the gene wasn’t intact.

The researchers then looked at 300 Japanese men who underwent a seven-day sleep study that included looking at their DNA. Of the 300, 29 of the men had a variant of the gene that is responsible for producing FABP7 and they tended to have irregular sleep patterns. They got the same amount of sleep as the other participants, but they woke often during the night.

The researchers also looked at fruit flies and found that those flies with a mutant FABP7 slept less restfully.

As Dr. Gerstner said, “This suggests that there’s some underlying mechanism in astrocytes throughout all these species that regulates consolidated sleep. It’s the first time we’ve really gained insight into a particular cell’s and molecular pathway’s role in complex behavior across such diverse species.”

If you’re focused on your BMI number, researchers at the University of Alberta will tell you that you’re barking up the wrong tree. The researchers say that this information, and the obsessive focus on BMI, doesn’t just hurt people and how they see themselves – it can create the wrong treatment plans from doctors.

Now, while this is a popular way for tracking population trends, Dr. Arya Sharma explains that it has limitations for individuals. Many professional athletes quality as being overweight because of their muscle mass.

As Dr. Sharma explains,

“BMI is a clothing size…It tells me how big you are. It doesn’t tell me how sick you are. BMI is not a good criteria to be diagnosing a disease.”

Dr. Scott Kahan, the director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness told Live Science that, “What any obesity specialist should do is use BMI as a first step, and then go beyond BMI as needed.”

Dr. Sharma emphasizes that doctors need to move from a BMI-based diagnosis of obesity and health issues to one that is more holistic and health-based.

Dr. Sharma and his colleagues have developed a more appropriate scale, according to them, called the Edmonton Obesity Staging System. With this program, doctors check on the physical health of the patient (looking for diabetes and joint problems for examples), at the mental health of the patient (depression, anxiety, etc) and at the functional health (doing day-to-day activities).

The American Society of Hematology, where Dr. Kenneth Nahum is a member, recently announced the names of the 23 hematologists who will be participating in the upcoming 2017 ASH Clinical Research Training Institute in Latin America. The program is taking place in Uruguay from April 5-6 and is designed to prepare current hematology fellows and junior faculty members who work in Latin America for their upcoming careers in clinical research.

The education sessions during the two day event will include topics about how to develop clinical research questions, how to write an abstract for publication, how to understand the fundamentals of clinical trial design and much more.

As ASH President Kenneth C. Anderson, MD said, “ASH is pleased to support clinical research in hematology by providing an opportunity for fellows and faculty members to focus on everything they need to know to implement successful programs. Science and patient care know no borders, which is why it is important for ASH to offer programs like this not only in the United States, but internationally as well.”

Members of the American Society of Hematology like Dr. Kenneth Nahum certainly benefit from their services and information. The ASH is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists and they are dedicated to furthering doctor understanding, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of blood disorders. The 2017 ASH Clinical Research Training Institute is one example of the many programs they create to further their mission.